AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Movies about romance are a staple. But what happens when that sweetness turns sour? In the new movie "The Roses," the starring duo heads to couples therapy.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE ROSES")
BELINDA BROMILOW: (As Janice) I see so much resentment and defensiveness and inability to apologize, to share your vulnerability.
OLIVIA COLMAN: (As Ivy) In his defense, he is a whiny baby, so that's vulnerability.
BROMILOW: (As Janice) Verbal cruelty.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: (As Theo) In England, we call that repartee.
RASCOE: They're played by Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch. And the movie got us to thinking about divorce and how it looks on screen. Let's bring in NPR movie critic Bob Mondello, who has seen a few of these movies in his time. Hey, Bob.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Hello. And let me start by just confessing something. I view these through a particular lens because my parents really ought to have gotten a divorce. My folks were not happy together. They were together for 36 years. They stayed together because of the kids, they kept saying, and they didn't ask the kids if we wanted that.
(LAUGHTER)
RASCOE: Yeah.
MONDELLO: And it was a rough time. And so when I went to movies and I saw things like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?")
ELIZABETH TAYLOR: (As Martha) I tried with you, baby. I've really tried.
RICHARD BURTON: (As George) Come off, it, Martha.
TAYLOR: (As Martha) I really tried.
MONDELLO: ...I felt as if I was looking at my parents fighting.
RASCOE: So let's start with "The Roses." So that's a reimagining of a book and a 1989 movie called "The War Of The Roses" with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. What did you think of this new version?
MONDELLO: Well, the new one is gentler. The first movie was directed by Danny DeVito, and it got really dark. I mean, by the end of it, these people hated each other. It was like - it made you sweat.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE WAR OF THE ROSES")
MICHAEL DOUGLAS: (As Oliver Rose) And you owe me a reason that makes sense. So let's hear it. Come on. Let's hear it. Let's hear it.
KATHLEEN TURNER: (As Barbara Rose) Because when I watch you eat, when I see you asleep, when I look at you lately, I just want to smash your face in.
MONDELLO: In this one, it starts out and it feels sort of like a romcom, they're doing a lot of establishing the couple. So when it gets darker later, it gets sort of dark, but these roses needed more thorns.
RASCOE: Oh, OK. So it wasn't thorny enough.
MONDELLO: Right.
RASCOE: What movies about divorce have stood out to you in a good way?
MONDELLO: Well, I was sort of fascinated to discover that as soon as movies started talking, they were talking about divorce. Cary Grant got his start with a bunch of comedies, like "In Name Only" and "The Awful Truth."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE AWFUL TRUTH")
IRENE DUNNE: (As Lucy Warriner) Oh, I'm so sorry. Mr. Leeson, this is my husband.
RALPH BELLAMY: (As Dan Leeson) Oh.
DUNNE: (As Lucy Warriner) Oh, he's only my husband for - how much longer is it now? Sixty days?
CARY GRANT: (As Jerry Warriner) Fifty-nine.
DUNNE: (As Lucy Warriner) Ah, that's better. Only 59 days. And don't worry about him. He has a continental mind.
GRANT: (As Jerry Warriner) Yes.
MONDELLO: Except that the characters end up staying together because society didn't accept divorce back then. Take that to an extreme with "Divorce Italian Style," Catholic country in 1961. The only option was killing your spouse (laughter), which is maybe not the approach most of us would want to take. "Divorce American Style" softened that a lot. It was Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds. It was a very money-centric approach. The point is avoiding alimony. So the best option is to find your ex a new partner. There's "Marriage Story" in 2019 about custody, but also about divorce lawyers.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MARRIAGE STORY")
RAY LIOTTA: (As Jay Marotta) If we start from a place of reasonable and they start from a place of crazy, when we settle, we'll be somewhere between reasonable and crazy.
ADAM DRIVER: (As Charlie Barber) Which is still crazy.
LIOTTA: (As Jay Marotta) Half of crazy is crazy.
RASCOE: Do these movies have much in common besides their subject matter?
MONDELLO: Well, I think there are two genres. The comedies are usually like romantic breakup movies on steroids. So they work a lot like rom-coms. One romance breaks up, and that means that there are other partners suddenly available.
The dramas are relationship movies, so they poke at the things that make you weep, like endangered children and financial ruin and loneliness - those kinds of things. In both cases, they're pressure cookers because spouses can't just leave. They have to talk or argue.
RASCOE: What's one all-time classic of the genre that someone might watch if they're in the mood for, you know, I mean, seeing a messy relationship that isn't their own (laughter)?
MONDELLO: I think the best of them is "Kramer Vs. Kramer."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "KRAMER VS KRAMER")
MERYL STREEP: (As Joanna Kramer) I want my son.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN: (As Ted Kramer) You can't have him.
STREEP: (As Joanna Kramer) Don't get defensive. Don't try to bully me, OK?
HOFFMAN: (As Ted Kramer) I'm not getting defensive. Who walked out of the house 15 months ago?
STREEP: (As Joanna Kramer) I don't care.
HOFFMAN: (As Ted Kramer) Jo.
STREEP: (As Joanna Kramer) I am still his mother.
HOFFMAN: (As Ted Kramer) Yes, from 3,000 miles away. And just because you sent a few postcards...
MONDELLO: It is of its time because there were certain assumptions made about what Meryl Streep's possibilities were in the career world and what Dustin Hoffman had to do in his career and what was the right choice for him as a father and all those kinds of issues.
But I think it is so smart about relationships and also about how when you've had a kid together, there is something there after the fact. You can have decided that the marriage doesn't work, and it doesn't mean that there's no relationship left there. It doesn't mean that there's no feeling. And the movie, it's just - there's a reason it won all those Academy Awards.
RASCOE: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
MONDELLO: It's a really smart take.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Bob Mondello. Thanks, Bob.
MONDELLO: It's always a pleasure, and this one was personal.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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